


You Should See Me In A Crown (Sequel to At Midnight)

by stardustsroses



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Fluffiness overload, also a little big of angst, also aleksander's daughter is badass af, and the darkles is a big papa bear, the one where alarkling are parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16420880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustsroses/pseuds/stardustsroses
Summary: Six years have passed since the last Ravkan War. The Sun Summoner and The Darkling are the loved Queen and King of Ravka, saviors to their people, the ones who have, at last, restored the balance in their world. Now, years after, their hard won peace seems to be a never ending thing. But as an old threat arrives, Alina must learn to reconcile her duties as a mother, a Queen, and a Saint to her people - and to her own family.





	You Should See Me In A Crown (Sequel to At Midnight)

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: You don’t have to read the prequel to read this one!

The girl and the boy played in the garden, chasing each other amongst the flowers. The girl, with a white ribbon tying her pitch black curls at the back of her head and a soft orange dress, the colour of dawns, matching her eyes, looked like the spitting image of her father. The boy was younger and smaller, with brown curls that fell over his forehead as he attempted to keep up with his older sister, and eyes of a soft grey, of spring rainclouds.  
The queen and king watched over them a few paces away, laying on a white blanket that captured the gentle and still weak spring sun. It was the type of morning they could not afford to have very often, and the laziness that came over them both as they lay next to each other was welcomed for the first time in several weeks.  
Aleksander Morozova lay on his side, watching the weariness in his wife’s eyes as she looked over at their children playing. Alina Morozova sat with her lower back against his legs, her sundress catching the light. She glowed, even without using her powers, as if the sun only shined for her. Her white hair was tied up in braid.   
He ran his hand over her back, seeking to distract her from whatever it was that was worrying her. Alina turned slightly, giving him a gentle smile. Aleksander could only muster a lazy smile back, feeling at peace for the first time in years. Centuries.  
“What is on your mind?” He asked, lifting himself up into a sitting position, wrapping her up in his arms while, in the background, cheerful laughter could be heard.  
“I was just watching our daughter.”  
He followed her line of vision, and his eyes landed on the dark haired girl that now sat in the grass, playfully twirling her fingers in the air, while rays of light shined out of her.  
“She is a marvel,” he said. “And getting stronger each day.”  
“It’s what worries me,” Alina said thoughtfully, sighing.  
Because even at such a tender age, their daughter could do things even Alina could not imagine doing – they had found the little one catching and throwing the light off the candles and candelabras as easily as she breathed, laughing with the joy of a child that did not know the magnitude of her own abilities. The servants had been petrified.   
Their son’s abilities were different; Nik was still too young to fully grasp the things he could do with practise, but over the years his powers had been small in comparison, a simple manoeuvre of the gentle shadows that had been born with him – a gift from his father, considerably dimmer, and not at all dangerous. As for Aleksandra-   
“Why?” He asked her, leaning into to place a lazy, lingering kiss on Alina’s bare shoulder. “We have her powers in check.”  
“But she doesn’t,” Alina responded. “And it’s one thing to create light, it’s quite another to control light outside herself. She does it so easily, and our daughter’s not even sixteen yet.”  
“You are afraid because her powers do not mimic yours,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder, his hands attempting to soothe her worry. “And you don’t understand them.”  
“Yes,” Alina admitted. “I don’t want her to ever feel like I did – not having anyone to help her understand and control what she can do. Finding herself inside a hole she can’t quite get out of.”  
“Your daughter will never feel like that, Alina,” Aleksander assured her. “She has us. We will try to understand it as much as we can, and lead her in the right direction. For now, I think we should wait and see how the powers develop.”  
Alina stayed silent, a smile spreading on her face as she watched her little boy laugh at the way his sister surrounded him with white light.  
It had been easier when they had been younger children. Alina and Aleksander only had to worry about the pranks the siblings pulled on each other – that sometimes ended badly, but most times served as a good laugh. Alina remembered when her daughter used to cling to her father’s neck as he showed her the shadows she liked so much, and Nikolai on his mother’s lap, clapping his hands when Alina created a ball of light, or multiple balls of light that floated all around him.  
Now the times were uncertain, for many reasons.  
As far as they were concerned, no other person outside their household knew what their children were capable of. It had been a mutual agreement not to let the world know that the Sun Summoner and The Darkling’s offspring had inherited their abilities. Peace was always built on thin foundations, and it could fall and crumble to pieces anytime. Especially in Ravka. So hiding their children from the eyes of the shu and the fjerdans was just a simple precaution.  
Which reminded him-  
“The Spring ball,” Aleksander said with dread. “Let’s cancel. Make an excuse.”  
Alina smiled at him, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “You know we cannot. It helps keep the peace, Aleksander.”  
“You are tempting me to twist the neck of a Fjerdan and split open a Shu,” he said lowly, dragging his lips up her neck in that same laziness.   
Alina shook her head at him, pulling away from those devilish lips. “Behave.”  
“I do behave,” he said back. “If I didn’t behave I would’ve already wiped out their entire territories.”  
“Aleksander,” Alina said, the way she always did when he showed his disregard for his enemies’ wellbeing.  
“There are so many perks to it, my Sol,” he continued, burying his face on her neck, smiling when he felt Alina lean against him. “It would erase the need for these senseless, theatrical balls, and I could dedicate my time to…” He pulled her closer once again, “…more productive things.”   
She fought a smile. “They know what we can do,” she said. “And that was enough for them to lower their weapons. They will keep their distance if we keep ours.”  
For how long? Was what he did not say.  
Instead, Aleksander wrapped his arms around her tightly and pulled her down to the blanket with him. Alina smiled, looking up at him. The sun gleamed in her chocolate eyes as Aleksander rested his hand on her cheek. He had his other hand underneath his jaw as he simply stared at her.  
“What?” Alina asked, searching his eyes.  
“I have known you for a whole century,” he began, “and yet every time you look at me like that, I ache. Everywhere.”  
Alina closed her eyes momentarily, just as the back of his fingers traced the softness of her cheek. When she looked up at him again, Aleksander was smiling. Surrounded by the sun, by blinding light, he was no longer haunted by shadows. His eyes looked blue in that pale light.  
“How am I looking at you?” She asked, but only in a whisper, for she could not bring herself to form proper words as she took him in like this.  
He leaned in, so close to her lips. “Like I have your whole heart.”  
“You do,” she breathed. “You still do.”  
“When we have lived long enough to forget what time is, you will still have mine,” he said to her, his nose touching hers. “Forever and always, Alina.”  
“What has gotten into you today?” She wondered, marvelling at his words. Alina smiled lovingly, pulling him close.   
Maybe it had been the sun, and the free day they got to just be like this. Or maybe it had been the way Alina had stared into his eyes, like she held the whole world in her arms. He didn’t know, he didn’t have an answer. So Aleksander just smiled, and touched his lips to his queen’s.  
Alina smiled into the kiss, letting out a relieved sigh that he kissed away. She let her hand rest on his cheek, her thumb drawing gentle, loving patterns on his skin. He pulled away then, opening his mouth to murmur-  
“Ew.”  
They both looked up to see their daughter staring down at them in complete judgment, while her little brother tied daisies together into a circle right behind her.  
Aleksander smiled to himself, leaning away from Alina. “Give it ten years,” he said to his daughter. “And when you find your own person, we’ll talk.”  
Aleksandra frowned in disgust. “No, thank you.”  
“No thank you?” Alina repeated, amused as she sat up. “You don’t want to fall in love?”  
Her daughter blinked at her, opening her mouth to vocalize her outrage when her brother spoke from behind her:  
“She already likes that Tidemaker girl,” Nik grinned. “Or was it that boy with the fire hands-“  
“Shut up, Nik!” Aleksandra said as she turned to glare at her brother. Wrapping her arms around herself in embarrasement, she added: “You know nothing.”  
Aleksander and Alina exchanged looks, attempting to hide their own amusement.  
“Can I go to the Little Palace today?” Their daughter asked hopefully.  
The smile was wiped from Aleksander’s face. “No.”  
His daughter’s shoulders sunk, as if she already expected such an answer. She turned to her mother. “Mama-“  
“Your father already said no,” Alina said. “And I agree.”  
Aleksandra closed her eyes. “I will not show my powers. I promised you that-“  
“The ball is tonight,” Aleksander said. “The shu and fjerdan leaders are arriving today. You know why we’re not letting you out of our sight.”  
Even Nikolai’s own eyes drifted to the floor, sensing the slight tension wavering in the air. Aleksandra stared at her father, clearly torn between understanding and her own need for defiance. She said in a very low voice:  
“They will remain our enemies if you keep treating them as such.”  
Aleksander blinked, watching his daughter, taking in the steel in her eyes. Wise words that should have been beyond her years, and yet-  
“You are a sensible girl,” Alina said, speaking over Aleksander’s stunned silence. “Intelligent, too. You know the risks. Risks we cannot face right now, Aleks. Be the example for your brother.”  
The younger girl scrunched her nose, clearly planning to argue. But her brother’s voice sounded again:  
“I’m almost thirteen,” he protested. “I can take care of myself.”  
Alina smiled, despite herself. “Nik.”  
“We don’t doubt it, son,” Aleksander said. He then looked at his daughter pointedly. “But you don’t understand the danger that-“  
“I do know the danger,” his daughter said, eyebrows furrowed in a very good imitation of her mother’s frown. “It doesn’t mean that I have to be cooped up because of it.”  
“It does if I say so.”  
His words were a final mark, and non-negotiable. He needed to make her understand that the world they lived in was not safe. That the people who called themselves their guests could just as easily hurt her. That at any moment they could face a foreign threat. But the tone he used-  
Aleksander felt the guilt and the regret bite at him the moment the words left his mouth, and it only worsened at the look his daughter gave him.  
“Aleks,” he called her when she turned away. His daughter walked inside their palace, her dress swooshing behind her and not once did she look back.  
Alina was looking up at him.  
“It’s okay, papa,” Nikolai said absentmindedly. “She’s been mad a lot lately.”  
Aleksander looked at his son. “Why?”  
Nikolai shrugged. “I don’t know – girl stuff? She stares out the window a lot.”  
They shared a look after their son’s words. Alina said, “I will go talk to her.”  
“Don’t,” Aleksander said, placing a soft hand over Alina’s. “I’ll go.”  
“Good luck,” Nik mused.  
“Don’t provoke your sister, Nik,” Aleksander pointed him a finger as he lifted himself up.  
“Me? I would never,” Nikolai said, wide-eyed and staring at his father, an artificial look of innocence in his grey eyes.  
Aleksander, despite himself, cracked a grin. He and Alina shared a look again, and Nikolai looked between them.  
“What?” He asked at last.  
Aleksander touched his son’s hair, pulling it out of his forehead. “Nothing,” he smiled softly. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”  
Alina’s smile turned slightly sad at her husband’s words, but her eyes turned to him at the heartfelt confession she heard between the lines.   
“Run along, now,” Aleksander said. “Go get yourself ready to receive the others.”  
“Can you help me with my tie after?” Nik asked. “I know you’ve explained it, but I still can’t figure it out.”  
“Of course, call for me when you’re ready.”  
“Thanks, papa.”  
Alina watched her son go, and lifted herself up to join her husband. “Don’t feel bad,” she said to him softly, taking his hand. “I know it slipped out. She knows you just want to protect her.”  
“Does she?” Aleksander said, turning to his wife with distant eyes. “Because she hasn’t looked at me the same way she did when she was little.”  
“Children grow,” Alina said to him, letting go of his hand to rest her palms on top of his chest. “And it’s a difficult age. Try to compromise with her.”  
He let out a sigh as a response, feeling the weight of the approaching event sink into his shoulders as the minutes ticked on. Alina smiled gently, and took his chin between two fingers, encouraging to turn his eyes to her.  
“Do you know why you’re so irritated?” She mused, giving him a smile.  
His frown deepened as he looked away. He just grumbled in response, making Alina smile wider.  
“Because she’s just like you,” Alina said, touching her lips to his cheek.   
“I don’t want her to be like me, Alina,” Aleksander said. “This is exactly why I need to protect her.”  
“You were the one that told me not to worry before,” Alina reasoned, letting her hands drag through the lapels of his kefta. A second’s pause. And then Alina said, “Maybe I should train with her. Instead of seeing where her power leads to – maybe we could understand better, then.”  
“You want to teach our children how to fight?”  
“Not to fight – to defend themselves. You know your daughter wants to be trained like a regular grisha, she’s asked us before-“  
“She’s not a regular grisha, Alina,” Aleksander said, pulling away gently. “Neither is Nik.”  
Alina paused, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Are you afraid your grisha are going to betray you and sell information about our children to the outside world?”  
Aleksander hesitated. But then, “Anything can happen.”  
“But she’s right, you know,” Alina crossed her arms. “We can’t just trap her.”  
“She’s far from being trapped,” Aleksander said.   
“You never see her with any friends,” Alina pointed out. “She doesn’t identify with people her age. Even if we do push her to make friends, we know it’s not easy for her, like it wasn’t easy for me. And aren’t we contradicting ourselves by preventing her from leaving?”  
“It’s just for one night,” Aleksander said. “We’re not telling her to never leave, Alina.”  
Alina sighed softly, then wrapped her arm around her husband. They walked together, their keftas dragging over the vivid grass. “I agree that tonight is an exception and we should take caution. But she feels she has no freedom, Aleksander. Make her see that she does, while trying to make her truly understand that we’re just trying to shelter her.”  
He could try – but Aleksander also knew his daughter. He knew her temper, and the way that her mind worked. She would not listen to him, at least not now. But soon – he would have to talk to her soon.  
The king turned towards the queen. “I love you,” he said, simply because he could.  
“I know,” Alina murmured, touching his cheek. “Now stop kicking yourself.”  
He shrugged, turning his face to kiss her palm. “This night hasn’t even started and I’m already wishing it to be over.”  
“Soon,” Alina said, wrapping her arms around him. “Soon, love.”  
“How will I leave your arms?” Aleksander said, letting his forehead fall on her shoulder. “I don’t see how that is going to happen, Alina.”  
She smiled, running a hand through his hair. “If it were up to you we would never leave our bed.”  
“If it was up to me,” he whispered in her ear, “I would take you to our bed right now.”  
Alina parted her lips when the feel of his mouth dragging kisses up her neck made her feel like jelly in his arms. She tried and failed to keep herself grounded to this earth. “We have to go get ready.”  
“Do we?”  
“Aleksander.”  
He smiled, but didn’t quite pull away, as she’d intended. Instead, he made a path of kisses from her earlobe to her jaw, a path which led right to her lips. He caught her mouth in a breathless kiss, both his hands on her cheeks, his thumbs on the underside of her jaw. Alina looked as dazed as he felt when they pulled away, but before she could change her mind and propose they leave the preparations for later, Aleksander touched his lips to her forehead in a soft goodbye.  
He smirked as Alina took her time to get her hands off him. One last little peck was pressed against his lips, and then she said, “Go, I will see you later.”   
“You will,” he said, and – just adding to Alina’s ever increasing heartbeat – he winked, before turning around.  
Alina laughed softly with a secret smile on her face, watching him go – her king clad in black.  
***  
When he knocked on her daughter’s door, there was no answer.   
He refrained from rolling his eyes, remembering how many times Alina had done the same to him over the decades.  
“Aleks,” he said. “Aleksandra.”  
“Come in,” came a soft voice from inside.  
He opened the door to find her sitting on her vanity, her dress now changed from soft orange to dusty pink, her hair loose over her shoulders, curling at the ends. Aleksander sat at the edge of her bed, watching her back turned to him.  
“I’m sorry,” he began. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”  
She didn’t answer him, simply twiddling with a hair bush in her hand.  
“I never wanted you to feel trapped, sunshine,” he said, watching her face carefully in the mirror. “What me and your mother want is for you to be safe. So just for tonight, we ask of you-”  
“Am I that different?”  
A pause. “What do you mean?”  
“Am I that different?” She repeated, turning in the chair so she could look at him. Her expression was guarded, but thoughtful. Aleksander’s heart clenched, as if it was being squished between fingers, at seeing the sadness there. “Am I that different from the others?”  
“You are unique.”  
She shook her head, turning her gaze towards the window.  
“Why does that upset you?” He asked, reaching out to take her gloved hand. “Your mother is also unique. So am I. That doesn’t mean-”  
“I want to train like the others.”  
Aleksander swallowed, seeing himself reflected in his daughter’s eyes. He waited for an explanation, and when it didn’t come on its own, he said gently, “You don’t need to, Aleksandra.”  
“Grisha don’t control their powers without proper training,” she said. “I feel it burning, papa. Every single day. Like it’s bubbling inside me, ready to explode. It might come a day when I don’t know what to do with it.”  
“Does it frighten you?”  
“No, it doesn’t frighten me,” she said, her voice grave. “I want to know what I’m capable of. Is that so wrong?”  
She’s just like you.  
Alina had to have been right. And he’d known it – ever since his daughter started saying her first words and even the first time she conjured light. He’d known that eventually it would have to come to this.   
“What are you scared of?” She asked, yanking her hand away from him. “Am I that dangerous? Do you believe me capable of crumbling this palace into pieces? Is that it?”  
“The only reason why we’ve not trained you or your brother is because we wanted to know first what kind of power you would have, Aleksandra,” he said firmly, not liking her tone. He sighed with frustration when she lifted herself up and turned to the window, away from him. “And so far it’s not clear what limitations you have.”  
“Then let me train to find out!”  
“Aleksandra, don’t you speak to me like that-“  
“The problem is that you don’t trust me,” she said, not bothering to face him. Her voice was ice cold. “Not you – and not mother.”  
His patience ran thin. “I do trust you,” he said. “It’s them I don’t trust.”  
She scoffed. “You never trusted anybody to begin with.”  
“I am warning you-“  
“What?!” She suddenly said, turning abruptly. Light danced at her fingertips, and she tried to momentarily shake it away, though it never left her. It only angered her further. “You see? This is the type of stuff I should be able to control.”  
Light danced in the room – not like an explosion, but like a soft wave of it, flooding the walls and the marbled floor, blinding him momentarily. His daughter closed her fists, her eyes shut tight, and seconds later it was all gone.   
It was worse – much worse than what he and Alina believed it to be. And not once had his daughter told him-  
“Why don’t you just admit that you’re scared I’ll turn out to be what you were?”  
The words were a slap in the face, a bucket of ice water tossed at him. They hit him at full speed, leaving him silent. He couldn’t ignore how his stomach turned.   
They stared at each other.  
It hit the mark, she realized. She had never, not once in her life, seen her father look like that. A low blow, one she couldn’t have prevented even if she had tried. Yet she could not bring herself to apologize.  
When there was no answer, Aleksandra turned to the door. Her father touched her arm to stop her as she passed him. She stayed very still.  
“You will go to your mother right now,” he said, his voice low. “And you will get ready for that ball. You and I will speak at the end of the night.”  
She yanked her arm free, walking off.  
Aleksander was left alone staring out the window to the sun-covered garden, his mind filled with memories of monsters.  
***  
The Spring ball happened every year.  
It was a celebration, they said – a toast to peace, to friendship, and to the new found brotherhood after the war. To Aleksander, it was no more than a play.   
The painted smiles turned in his direction as he walked with Alina down the stairs that led to the throne room. Rose vines of different hues hugged the pillars and followed the contours of the doors and big, wide open windows on either side of the enormous room. Flowers in jars were placed in dark corners, a million colours spreading over the otherwise blank canvas that was the marbled palace.  
In front of him, stood the fjerdan king and his oldest son, both wearing heavy fur coats and excessive jewellery, despite their country’s bankruptcy. Beside him, the shu king stared him down, looking as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world but here.   
Aleksander could sympathise.  
Alina spoke first, “Welcome,” she said. “Your Majesties, thank you for joining us for yet another year.”  
“The pleasure is ours, Sankta Alina,” the shu said, bowing his head just slightly.  
At his side, he could feel Alina stiffen at the term. Her people never called her queen – it was always Sankta, as they kissed her knuckles and cried their thanks, so it was not the term itself that irked her, but the way it was used.   
As if she weren’t wearing a crown on her head. As if the Shu decided to dismiss that completely.  
Alina just gave him a pretty smile, one she perfected over the years.   
“Oh, I thought we were to meet the delightful Prince and Princess of Ravka tonight,” the fjerdan king said with a crocodile smile of his own, his fjerdan accent as heavy as his clothes. “But I see no sight of them.”  
“Our daughter and our son will be out soon,” Aleksander said, with a squeeze at Alina’s hand – a reminder to himself, so he wouldn’t end up the night painting the walls red. “May I ask why the sudden interest, Your Majesty?”  
“Not at all, moi Tsar,” the man said, widening his smile. “It’s just that my son, Haldan, was very excited to meet them. Word is that the princess is as beautiful as her mother.”  
Aleksander’s eyes looked over to the pale, sandy-haired boy standing at his father’s side. He was young, and had to be at least seventeen years of age – and yet he had the constitution of a soldier. The boy bowed, but kept his eyes firmly planted on his. No whiff of fear.  
“Moi Tsar,” Haldan said.  
Aleksander gave a single nod to the prince, and said to the fjerdan king, “You start training them young, I see.”  
A yellow smile was returned. “A military education has always been custom in the royal family.”  
Alina squeezed at his hand, and with a sugar-sweet smile she excused them both. “Enjoy the night, gentleman.”  
She practically dragged him away, and Aleksander believed for a few seconds that she expected him to pounce on the fjerdan king, but he soon realized that Alina was simply stopping herself.  
“Dance with me,” she said.  
He pulled her into his arms, and they danced to the slow rhythm of the music. Aleksander felt her shaking in his arms.  
“Don’t,” he murmured to her. “Calm down.”  
Alina turned her head away from the general direction of the other kings, facing Aleksander’s chest. Her husband circled her wrists and placed her hands on his chest, beneath the lapels of his coat, hiding them from view. Alina realized she’d been close to releasing her power, and Aleksander had felt it. Of course he had.  
“They do it to provoke you,” he said. “To get a reaction out of you.”  
“I know,” Alina muttered to him. “But it feels like a threat.”   
“Don’t you think I would’ve left him dead on the floor if it was more than talk?”  
Alina didn’t respond, and simply focused on her breathing as well as slowing her heartbeat. The world focused again, and her feet were set on the ground. Rage quickly dissipated as she swayed in his embrace.  
To distract herself, she asked, “What happened between you and Aleks?”  
Alina saw her husband’s eyes darken slightly at that. “Later.”  
“Aleksander.”  
He looked down at her, and despite the chaos around them, Aleksander allowed himself a small smile. He kissed the tip of her nose, the center of her brow, and finally left a small, gentle kiss on her lips – a kiss that promised a great many things after the night was over.  
But because she knew him better than she knew the palm of her hand, Alina noticed the way the shadows danced in the grey eyes, their colour from different from the morning before. She touched his cheek gently, and said, “What did she say to you?”  
And he only murmured, “The truth.”  
***  
The Princess and Prince of Ravka were introduced at dinner. The people were absolutely delighted with them, though most of them believed the girl to be too quiet. The boy, however, managed to smile the whole entire night, keeping up with most of the conversation and often filling the blank spaces left by the tension with joy and laughter and jokes. His parents looked to him with endless pride, as did his quiet sister, who did not smile much.  
Across from her, the Crown Prince smiled.  
Aleksandra had the vague sense that if snakes could smile that would be the spitting image of one. She did not return it, not even when he extended a hand clothed in white and asked her to honour him with a dance.  
Beside her, her mother watched the two closely, while her father on the other side sipped away his drink without ever turning his eyes to her. Though she knew that he was listening and all too aware of what was about to happen. He didn’t stop her from taking the prince’s hand, though, and neither did her mother.  
When the clock struck eleven, the prince took her in his arms. He was considerably taller, his shoulders broad and his eyes as clear as cutting glass. She would’ve believed him handsome, if not for the way his eyes glinted at her – with untold secrets and a thousand schemes.  
He didn’t dance like she expected him too. It was clumsy and not in any way, shape or form an attempt at charming her. He barely tried. Still, the smile he wore managed to enchant almost every person in the room. She felt the eyes of the courtesans and fellow grisha on her, but also taking in the handsome prince.  
“For someone as beautiful as you,” he began, his breath warm against her cheek, his fjerdan vowels rough, “one would think you would smile more, princess.”  
Aleksandra felt as if she had been enveloped in the arms of a grinning wolf.   
She didn’t hold it against him to feel confident in his own wolf skin. After all, he was simply ignorant to the fact that she was no mouse herself.  
Her smile was as sharp as knives as she leaned in closer, the fjerdan tongue coming easily to her. “What is it with you men always telling women to smile?” She knew she lacked the right pronunciation, and that her consonants were too soft, but she didn’t care. The look on his face delighted her.   
“You know fjerdan,” he said in his own tongue, an appreciative smile on his face but a cutting edge to his tone. “You have misunderstood me, princess. I merely wished to comment on your beauty – and suggest how it would only increase with your smile.”  
“I do not care to smile at men I do not know.”  
“Just fjerdan men, I assume?” He said, his tone hinting at playfulness, yet his eyes saying otherwise. He twirled her unceremoniously, but to everybody else it just seemed as graceful as any dance movement.  
“I don’t make distinctions,” she said in ravkan.  
“My loss, then, I suppose,” he said, also in ravkan.  
When he turned once more, Aleksandra caught a glimpse of her father, talking to her mother. His eyes turned to her, and then glided over to the prince that held her. His eyes were ice.  
“Are you as mundane as they say?”   
“Pardon?” She asked him.  
“Word is that you do not have the powers of your parents. That you are simply a girl, living in a world of magic, with no such talents.”  
It would be seen as offensive to push away from the prince at that moment, minutes before the music ended, with everybody watching. So Aleksandra simply stayed silent, her eyes stuck to the windows behind his shoulder.  
“I do not believe them,” the prince said.  
“And I do not care what you choose to believe in,” she remarked, looking at him straight in the eye. “Your opinion matters as much to me as a fallen leaf in my garden.”  
He laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, cultured in the court’s required charm. Soft, with a distinctive manly tone. It unsettled her for a few seconds, how much she liked the sound of that artificial laugh.  
“We all know why your parents would hide you like this,” Haldan said, his hand splaying over her back, as the music changed, keeping her close. “And it’s not for your beauty, princess.”  
“So you fjerdans are still as narrow-minded as you were a hundred years ago,” she nodded.   
“We don’t like impostors.”  
Aleksandra didn’t hide her sneer, knowing her face was hidden from view of those who sat at the table and those few who danced behind her. “Mind your tongue,” she warned. “You are speaking with the daughter of a king.”  
“A daughter of a heretic, more like it,” he murmured softly, like a love-swept boy. “And a whore of a mother dressed as a saint.”  
Her nails dug into the white coat of his shoulder. Everything around her turned red.  
Haldan twirled them again, so she would have to put a mask over her face. He was smiling wider each passing second.  
Instantly, she knew what he was doing. Haldan was testing the waters, watching over her with the attention of a predator, seeking for reactions, for any sort of attack that might come from her. For any sort of magic.  
It came to her then, like waves of ice water coating her veins, sliding over her arms and legs, reaching all the way to her heart. She took a single breath, shut her eyes once, and the world seem to tilt for a few seconds. As quick as it came to her – it was gone the next second, and Haldan hadn’t seemed to notice a single change in her body, despite the angry magic she’d felt, urging her to envelop him, choke him.  
Not in blinding light. But in terrible darkness.  
Aleksandra said, very softly, “I do not like you one bit.”  
He pulled her even closer. His hand pulled away from hers to grasp at her waist. In time with the music Haldan lifted her up, and he followed her eyes as her feet lifted for those brief seconds that he twirled, and stayed on her until her feet were back on the ground.   
“Beautiful, indeed,” he murmured, eyes sweeping over her face.  
“You should see me in a crown,” she said, raising her chin in defiance.  
He smirked. “I believe I will someday, princess.”  
The prince pulled her against him as the music ended in a wave of applause. They stared at each other, showing their fangs.  
Haldan said, very sweetly, “Drüsje.”  
Witch.  
He pulled away slowly, bowing deeply at the waist. His lips lingered on the back of her gloved hand as he kissed her knuckles. That feeling came to her again – so strong that she was glad for the gloves. Her hands felt like ice.  
And a thought came to her; one so dark it startled her.  
I could kill him now. I have the power to do so.  
Aleksandra smiled a princess’ smile.  
“Drüskelle,” she murmured back, bowing her head.  
That word – it had become a filthy one over the centuries. As bad as Drüsje and, in this case, much worse. It was a clear ravkan insult to the fjerdans, labelling them forever as witch hunters.  
When she pulled away from him, she did not look back.  
If she had looked at her father as she walked back the stairs to the third floor, she would’ve noticed that his eyes gleamed with understanding, with a realization she did not know. If she would’ve looked back, she would’ve seen Haldan stare at his own father over his shoulder, his smirk completely wiped from his face.  
But as the arrow on the clock moved, Aleksandra did not look back.  
***  
He knocked on her door.  
She was already in her night clothes when she opened it, looking over her father with tired eyes. She didn’t give him time to speak. Her arms wrapped around his middle, her face buried into his chest.  
Aleksander closed the door behind him, and wrapped his daughter in his arms, kissing the top of her head. As she softly cried, his eyes fell onto the old stuffed toy at the center of her bed, a dog she always used to play with when she was little.  
“Papa, please! Dog! Dog!”  
“You’re going to sleep afterwards, do you hear me?”  
“Yes, now, please! Dog dog dog!” She’d clapped her little hands, waiting for the shadow show.  
Her father simply waved a hand, and twirled a finger. The world became soft darkness, fresh and comforting, embracing her. Around her images displayed, colours exploding everywhere.   
Her laugh had always been his favourite thing. It was her mother’s laugh. Aleksander smiled, touching a hand to her cheek.  
“I do shadows?” She’d asked him, pointing at the smoke-like dogs running after each other.  
“Maybe someday, my sunshine. Maybe someday.”  
He swayed gently with her, the way he always did whenever she cried. His heart ached at the memories, so happy and now so far away.  
His daughter’s sobs dissolved into uneven breaths. And when they were gone, he wiped at her tears with his thumbs.  
“When did the shadows first come to you?” He asked, his voice gentle.  
Of course he would know. Aleksandra did not ask him how he did – only assuming that he sensed them, as she’d always sensed his.  
“A few months back,” she murmured. “It changes, all the time. Sometimes it’s light, sometimes it’s darkness. Never the two at once.”  
But – both. She could create both.  
Aleksander looked at her, searching her eyes. He murmured, “Does it frighten you?”  
She shook her head.  
“Can’t you control it?”  
“It’s getting harder,” she replied. “Just now, at the ball-“  
“I saw,” he simply said. “I knew.”  
“Does mama know?”  
“Yes, sunshine,” he said. “She knows.”  
The first glimpse of it, Aleksander had been yanking at his wife’s sleeve, urging her to see the same things he was seeing as the pair danced before them. It hadn’t been shadows or light covering her hands but – a strange feeling that swept over them, a calling, almost. As Aleksander’s power called out to Alina – now she sensed the same in her daughter too. Not just the light. Neither of them knew how it took them so long to sense something else bubbling with the light.  
“Papa,” she murmured against his chest. “I’m sorry.”  
“It’s alright, my love.”  
“No, it’s not,” she shook her head. “I didn’t mean it. Any of it.”  
He stayed silent, running his hands soothingly through her hair. Aleksander said, “You were right.”  
She looked up at him, her nose red.   
He continued, “I was not a good man, Aleks. There are many things I regret.”  
She’d only heard brief stories, snippets of her parent’s lives before her. The rest she’d overheard in the Little Palace, whispered things said in dark corners and empty rooms. Things she’d heard and not let herself believe.  
“Did the darkness do that to you?”  
“No,” he said. “I did it to myself. The darkness followed me, I did not follow it.”  
She cast her eyes down. “Sometimes I’m afraid of what I might do.”  
“I understand.”  
She closed her eyes, wiping at her cheeks. “I know you do – it was childish of me to throw that in your face. And very wrong. I felt ashamed the moment I said it.”  
He smiled softly, pulling the stray hairs away from her face.  
“You are not the man you were,” she said. “My father is a good man, and a good husband, and a good king. Nobody will tell me otherwise. I will not permit it.”  
“You don’t believe him to be a heretic?”  
Her gaze narrowed. “You heard him.”  
“I heard everything.”  
Her teeth clenched. “A drüskelle know-nothing – that’s all that he is.”  
“He was taught to hate you,” he said. “If your mother has taught me anything is that no one is every truly born with hatred in their hearts.”  
“There are exceptions,” she frowned.  
Aleksander smiled. “Pay no attention to what others believe, Sol. The world has enough hatred.”  
“You’re speaking like mama.”  
“She has said those words to me countless times,” he mused. “Your mother is a very wise woman.”  
They sat down on her bed, and Aleksandra rested her head on his shoulder. “Will you teach me, papa?”  
“Yes,” he said softly. “Your mother and I will train you adequately. Along with the other grisha – if that’s what you want.”  
She nodded, “Thank you.”  
“I’m truly sorry, my love, if I made you feel like less than the others.”  
She shook her head. “You didn’t make me feel like I was less than anything, papa. If anything you made me feel like I was one step above everybody. I don’t like it.”  
“Do you wish you were ordinary?”  
“At times,” she said.  
He hesitated, not sure if he should touch that topic. In the end he said, “Is it because of…Marcia?”  
His daughter went silent and very still for a few seconds. And then she slowly said, “I only snuck out once.”  
“You are a worse liar than your mother.”  
Aleksandra smiled. “How did you know?”  
“I didn’t need a sixth sense,” he said to her. “Remember I was your age once.”  
“If you knew I was sneaking out, then why didn’t you just give me permission to go to the Little Palace?”  
Aleksander looked at her. “I needed you to understand the danger you were putting yourself in. And hope you were careful enough not to walk in front of it.”  
“Why didn’t you ground me?”  
He smiled down at her. “Was I ever the type of father that grounded you?”  
Her silence was enough – no, he hadn’t been.  
“She’s afraid of me,” Aleksandra said quietly, a little sad breathy laugh following. “She wants nothing to do with me.”  
“Someday you will find a person that will never look at you can do with fear in their eyes,” her father promised her. “You will love someone who loves you back not despite what you are but because of what you are.”  
“You and mother are a unique case, papa. I don’t believe fate has that planned for me.”  
“I thought that too,” he said. “Until I met her.”  
They stayed in silence, until the party downstairs quietened, until everybody was asleep, until his wife came to fetch him. When Alina cracked the door open carefully, his daughter was sound asleep, wrapped in her blankets, and Aleksander sat next to her, running his hands through the dark hair.  
Alina murmured, “Everything alright?”  
He nodded, turning to look at his wife. “I’ll be right there. Sleep, my Koroleva.”  
Alina watched her daughter with a smile, and nodded at her husband.  
But he didn’t go right to bed.  
Aleksander kissed his daughter’s forehead, murmured a gentle goodnight, and paced around in their chambers until all the candles went out.  
In the next room Alina slept, and he didn’t want to disturb her with his thoughts. So he sat at the piano in the main room, thinking back on the day’s events. He played each note carefully, gently, a soft melody echoing in the walls, a lullaby he’d composed not too long ago. His mind was not quite rested.  
He didn’t know if it had been hours or just a few moments, but when he came back to himself he felt a warm hand at his shoulder. He turned to see Alina with her unbound hair, wrapped in his black kefta and nothing else. They shared a look, both tired and full of love, full of unspoken, unnecessary words. She touched a hand to his cheek, and her power seeped through him, telling him what he needed to know.  
His heart felt heavy, and she knew.  
Alina climbed onto his lap, her hands on his cheeks. The wide sleeves of his kefta slid down just so, showing the glowing skin behind, and the hands that soothed him, that carried some of the weight of his heart.  
“Tell me,” she murmured, her lips a breath away.  
He shook his head.  
“Talk to me,” she asked, turning her head to place a gentle kiss on his cheek. Her hair poured over her shoulder – white ink spilling against her skin.  
“Sometimes my head is full of monsters even if my heart is warm,” he said quietly. “Even if I don’t look at them they’re always there, staring. Waiting for me to join them.”  
She stared at him, half in sadness, half in understanding. She kissed him, so sweetly, so gently. It broke everything in him.  
When Alina pulled away, she said, “You will never be in the dark again, Aleksander.”  
“Tell me,” he begged.  
“I love you,” she whispered to him, wrapping one arm around his shoulder. Her lips touched his brow. His saint, wishing the rain clouds again. “I love you,” she said again.  
Sometimes he felt as if he were living another’s life. He felt as though he had not been made to live in the light, to spend mornings wrapped up in the sun’s embrace with lazy smiles and loving kisses. Sometimes Aleksander doubted that it was even real. His nightmares showed him his true reality – the reality that could chase the dream away and become his life.  
“It’s real,” Alina whispered to him, searching his eyes. Like she knew. “It’s real.”  
“You are the love I never deserved,” he said to her, hands clinging to her waist. “You gave me my daughter and my son and I never deserved them either.”  
“You deserve everything.”  
“No,” he whispered.  
“Yes,” she said back, tilting his chin so his eyes are the same level as hers. “It is thanks to you – and to that darkness – that they are safe. You sacrificed too much, Aleksander.”  
“Not enough. It’s still not enough.”  
“Lies,” Alina said, shaking her head. “Don’t listen to the darkness, my love, listen to me.”  
He closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe in her scent, to feel the light seeping through his bones. The world was brand new and joyous, and nothing could stop him from taking in the sun.  
“Say it again,” he asked her, so softly. “Just one more time.”  
“I love you,” Alina said against his lips. “Aleksander-“  
He lifted her up, high – until she was sitting at top of the piano, his kefta opening on its own. Alina gasped when his lips touched hers.  
Stepping between her legs, walking into her arms, it erased any sort of darkness that clung to him now. Alina glowed as he picked her up, his lips never departing from hers as he placed her gently onto the bed.  
“Look at me,” she asked him as he lost himself in her, in her touch and in the feel of her bare skin beneath his hands.   
His eyes focused solemnly on hers.   
“You have my heart,” she said. “And I have yours. And you are no longer trapped in darkness on your own.”  
He nodded, his forehead against hers, his body aligned with hers, his heart beating in time with hers. “You bring me back to life, Alina.”  
She smiled, wrapping her arms around him. “Believe me when I say it, Aleksander,” she said, parting her lips at the feel of him, completely against her. “Two centuries from now – I will love you. A millennia from now – I will want you. Never doubt me.”  
The dark hours were spent in her arms, murmuring her name and hearing his name being said back to him in between gasps and whispers. In the early hours of morning, Alina left a thousand kisses on his body, each meant to remind him of what awaited him – that light, that happiness and that the sun awaited him. She had a million I love you’s reserved for him, some were whispered, and some were muttered between moans.  
She always slept clinging to him, and maybe that was why Aleksander no longer drowned in his dreams. The sun was being born outside. As the first rays of light enveloped the room, dripping from the windows and onto the floors, Alina opened her eyes to greet him.  
She smiled.  
His heart was weightless.  
And yet as big as the world.   
“Hello,” she murmured.  
“Hello,” he murmured back.  
She rolled on top of him, greeting him with a kiss, two kisses, three kisses. His arms were tightly wrapped around her, forever holding on. And Alina said to him, “It’s a sunny day.”   
“Yes,” Aleksander murmured, no shadows in his eyes. “Yes, it is.”  
To Be Continued.


End file.
